Elton John

• Year: 2001
• Rating: 9/10
• Cat. No: 5863302

Track listing:

1. The Emperor’s New Clothes
2. Dark Diamond
3. Look Ma, No Hands
4. American Triangle
5. Original Sin
6. Birds
7. I Want Love
8. The Wasteland
9. Ballad Of The Boy In The Red Shoes
10. Love Her Like Me
11. Mansfield
12. This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore

So few of his peers remain a commercial force these days, that if nothing else one has to admire Elton John’s sustained longevity. There have been blips along the way – between 1978 and 1982 his popularity waned, while he has offered little of real value album-wise since 1992’s The One – but the John/Taupin writing axis has always produced a better-than-average ratio of great vs. indifferent.

Songs From The West Coast is the first full-blown studio release since 1997’s often stodgy The Big Picture, and perhaps – as with the 3-year hiatus his last excellent record The One followed after Sleeping With The Past – a break serves Elton John well.

For here he is, more than three decades down the line, sounding fresher than he has since Too Low For Zero effectively reinvigorated his career in 1983.

Public credit and inspiration has been personally given to rising alt.Rock superstar Ryan Adams for this return to form, for driving John to get back to basics and rekindling the qualities that originally cemented his place in the 70s canon of seminal artists.

While there has always been something rather ersatz about a boy from Pinner in North London singing down home paeans to all kinds of Americana and associated mythology, Songs From The West Coast feels particularly authentic in sound and delivery. Lincolnshire-born Bernie Taupin now lives his boyhood fantasy from a ranch deep in the heartland, and thus his trademark lyrical conceits are laced with more reality and first-hand perception than the last time Elton John records sounded like this in those mid-70s glory days.

Taupin’s emotionally battered confessionals on I Want Love and instant classic This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore are perfectly interpreted with all the necessary depth and nuance. American Triangle is another highlight, a poignant song based on the gay-bashing in America’s deep south which caused the horrific crucifixtion of Matthew Shepherd.

It’s not all so intense, however. The Emperor’s New Clothes, Look Ma No Hands and The Wasteland are chundering workouts, but overall the tempo leans towards the slower side of reflective, to match Taupin’s lyrical outlook on these 12 tracks.

Musically, Songs From The West Coast showcases John’s finest playing in years, and his arrangements are less pedestrian and predictable than on recent albums. There is a warmth to the production, too, that’s been missing for some time.

Unexpected as it may be, Elton John has gone and made the finest album of his career.